Amazon Game Studios publishes 'Air Patriots' for Apple's iOS

Internet retail giant Amazon on Thursday released its first ever in-house mobile game, Air Patriots, for iOS and Android, as well as a unique Kindle Fire edition.

The new title from Amazon Game Studios, the company's game development division, is a so-called "freemium" app that is free to download but also supports in-game purchases, and features a tower defense gameplay style popular with smaller-screened devices.

"When we created Air Patriots we wanted to make a game that was easy and engaging, and the simplicity of drawing paths for planes was something we thought would appeal to players," said Amazon Game Studios Executive Producer Ernie Ramirez. "We think customers will find Air Patriots both familiar and fresh, with a degree of challenge that keeps them engaged and enthused to play more. We are very excited to bring Amazon customers Air Patriots today, and Amazon Game Studios looks forward to bringing our fans even more great games in the future."

Unsurprisingly, Amazon paid special attention to features unique to its Kindle Fire HD tablet, including tight integration with the company's GameCircle and support for cloud-based game saves via Whispersync. Much like Amazon's e-books, the inclusion of Whispersync allows users to stop play on one Kindle and switch to another, where the game will pick up from the last save point.

Air Patriots marks Amazon's first attempt at developing a first-party mobile game, and follows the company's debut title Living Classics, which was created for the Facebook platform.